Stalking the Nightmare Part 22

"I warned you," Hodel said. "He's gone over the edge. "

"No, no... I'm fine... just fine," Ellison croaked. "Let me think a moment. Undrying tears. That is to say, tears that don't dry. It's a tabby cat. A sweet, little, loveable tabby cat. Mola.s.ses is its name..."

"Not mola.s.ses... Thala.s.sa. The Greek personification of the sea," she said.

"Thala.s.sa. Right. Sorry. My mind seems to be giving way. I can't thank you enough for this idea, Joyce.

You're a brick." He closed his eyes, rubbed his temples and thought.

"The silence you hear is Ellison thinking," Hodel told the audience. "While we're waiting, let me tell you about my new wife, Nancy."

From behind closed eyes Ellison murmured, "I'm sure they live for the knowledge."

"My new wife, Nancy," Hodel began, a thoroughly lachrymose expression suffusing his round little face, "is a woman of sterling qualities... "

"The most sterling of which is that she's brought her lunacy under control totally, save for having marriedyou. Shut up, Hodel, I've got an idea for Muskat's stupid concept."

"I'm sure they're waiting with bated breath."

"The undrying tears the cat is crying are actually the legendary Waters of Nepenthe, the water of forgetfulness from Greek mythology. The cat is the eternal trustee of the potent waters, turned loose in ancient times to bring release from painful memories to mortals. The animal is thousands of years old. The cat is captured by an unscrupulous sort of person, like Stromboli the puppet master who chained up Pinocchio. He's going to sell the undrying tears of Nepenthe for exorbitant rates. And, uh, I don't know how I'd develop it, but in the end the cat would probably find a way to get the Stromboli creep to drink some of the tears, thereby forgetting what the cat is... and it would get away to continue its mission on Earth."

"I like that," Joyce Muskat said. "See, you're not such an unfeeling p.r.i.c.k, after all."

The rest of the hour went that way.

John Ratner suggested two ideas: a parasitic business manager who finds he is becoming a character in his top client's newest production; and a concept, nebulous in the extreme, about "beautiful people" in a Los Angeles where humans have grown fur coats on themselves and there's no fas.h.i.+on industry. Ellison's developments of these were less than successful. He wound up apologizing. Ratner forgave him.

Alan Chudnow called in with something different. A t.i.tle. Just a t.i.tle. "Dust is Falling at the Tower of Minos."

Ellison insulted his moustache, reaffirmed his desire to make it with his grandmother, and told him he'd file away the story t.i.tle till he was ready to write a Samuel R. Delany-style trilogy. That time would come, Ellison a.s.sured Chudnow, soon after the writing of a novel featuring dragons, small people with furry feet and unicorns that responded to anyone who was not a virgin. "Tramp, s.l.u.t unicorns," Ellison said.

Jon R. McKenzie offered the vaguest idea of the evening. "Two friends who grow apart, who change, yet remain the same, and come back together over the period 1970 to 1980." Ellison had trouble with that one, finally falling back on a variation of his story "Shatterday," by suggesting they were halves of the same person, traumatically severed in childhood, who had grown up in the same neighborhood without realizing they were the dark and light sides of the same persona." And in the end," Ellison said, drawing to a close with that idea, "the dark side becomes a killer and the light side becomes a priest; and in the concluding scene the good guy, Father Flotski, is outside the prison where the bad guy, Mad Dog Berkowitz, is holed up with hostage guards, and Father Flotski is yelling up at him with a bullhorn, 'Come on, you no-good kike, let the guards go before I have the Virgin Mary bite off your nose!' "

Three subsequent phone calls accused Ellison of being an anti-Semite. Ellison responded by saying, "Some of my best friends are Jews. Like my mother. My father. Me."

Jeff Rubenstein came on the air reminding Ellison he was the manager of a Crown Books shop in the San Fernando Valley where Ellison shopped. "What's your idea?" Ellison asked.

He wished he hadn't. "How about the domestication of Arabian camels to be used as race animals for American racetrack betting; and National Football League players all want to ride them as jockeys."

"Jeff," Ellison said, "you are a good and decent human being, and I thank you for all your courtesy when I come into Crown, but that is in the top tenth of the first percentile of lamebrained ideas I have ever had thrown at me."

"In other words, you're giving up, admitting defeat, is that it?" Hodel said. Ellison threw the can of Fresca past his head.

"I'm not admitting defeat," Ellison said. "I just need a while to let this one percolate. It ain't easy."

"Okay, we'll take another call."

"My name is Dan Turner. How about a story in which someone invents a way for individuals to get what they deserve?"

Ellison smiled. "Not what they want... what they deserve?"

"Yeah."

"That's easy. The guy who develops the gizmo has been in love with this beautiful, witty, intelligent woman all his life, but she won't have anything to do with him. Contrariwise, there's this plain-looking woman--not ugly, just sort of average--who's been in love with him, and she can't get him. Well, when he's busy turning this gizmo on people, giving them what they deserve, someone turns it on him..."

"And he gets the plain woman, right?" Hodel said.

"Wrong. He gets a thoroughly rotten woman. He didn't even deserve the nice, decent, average woman. "

"It doesn't knock me out," Hodel said.

"The original idea didn't send me to the moon, either, Hodel. I'm dancing as fast as I can here."

Hodel punched up another call. Ellison was beginning to reel. He had the feeling he had been sucked headfirst into the collective head of science fiction fandom, and he didn't like the neighborhood. "You're on the air."

"Hi, I'm Charles Garcia, and my topic for a story is another story about the little blue Jewish aliens with wheels who needed a minyan for their dying planet; and throw in something about the Pope, if possible."

"You mean you want me to write a sequel to 'I'm Looking for Kadak'?"

"Uh-huh."

"Mr. Garcia, that's not an idea. I did that one already. "

"Oh." He sounded wounded. "Okay." And he rang off.

Ellison looked chagrined." I think I hurt his feelings."

"As opposed to the thousands you've insulted tonight who are probably all slas.h.i.+ng their wrists or mailing you bombs," Hodel said wryly.

"Yeah, well... I didn't mean to upset Garcia." Hodel put on another caller. Mayer Alan Brenner. "I know you," Ellison said.

"You sure do. And I've got a beauty for you."

"Be still my heart," Ellison said, sinking down on his spine.

"It's an excerpt from NORTHEAST TREE AND STREAM," Mayer said." A short natural history of the famous Chesapeake Tree-Climbing Octopus... "

"Why me?" Ellison groaned. "Which G.o.d did I offend?"

"All of them," said Hodel.

Mayer went on, undaunted by sounds of pain coming over his radio. "This retiring and rarely-glimpsed creature lives in the many quiet estuaries of the Chesapeake system. Early each morning the octopus leaves the water and crawls up the trunk of a sh.o.r.eside tree. It makes its way precariously onto a branch overhanging the water, where it waits for its prey to pa.s.s underneath."

Silence ensured. Dead air hung heavily in the night.

Finally, Ellison said, "And that's it, right? That's the idea, right, Mayer?"

"Uh-huh."

More silence. Then, in a very soft, very tired voice, Ellison said, "These blue-skinned Jewish aliens with wheels come down to Earth and kidnap the Pope so they can have a race on Arabian camels to establish whether Jews or Gentiles are worthiest to live in the universe, and the Pope gets all these NFL players to ride as his team, because they're all Polish or black and not a Jew in the lot" and they have this watercourse raceway and they race for the universe, and as they come under this tree in the Chesapeake system the octopus drops out of a tree and eats every last, f.u.c.king one of them, football players, Jewish aliens, the Pope, the camels, Brian Sipe and Terry Bradshaw and Walter Pay ton and you too Mayer!"

In the control room Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, was trying to laugh and pick his nose at the same time.

"The time is 10:55 and this is KPFK-FM in Los Angeles," Hodel said." And this is Hour 25. the weekly program of speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy and wonder... and I'm your host, Mike Hodel."

"This is a science fiction program?!" Ellison shrieked. "This isn't The 700 Club? But I came to declare for Ba'al!"

Hodel punched up a call. "You're on the air."

It was William Stout, the artist responsible for the bestselling DINOSAURS book. "I want him to think up a story in which William Stout gets to meet some real dinosaurs," he said. He waited.

Ellison said, "Okay, there's this story in which William Stout gets to meet some real dinosaurs, and they have lots and lots of real nice adventures, and if you want to find out how this story ends, go to the library and ask Miss Beckwith to let you check out the book. So long, Stout, you a.s.shole."

Hodel said, "Thank G.o.d we have an eight second delay on the live phone lines."

"You don't have any eight second delay," Ellison said.

"I know, I know," Hodel said, dropping his head into his hands.

"And now, let's cut to Pasadena, to the LungFishCon, for the weekly calendar of events and the scintillant Terry Hodel, this dip's ex-wife," Ellison said. Hodel was weeping.

Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, threw the switch and the booth went dead as Terry Hodel did the calendar remote.

Hodel looked up, with tears in his eyes. "The FCC's gonna get me again. You did it to me the last time, and you're gonna do it again this time."

"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it," Ellison said. Then a look of transcendental horror pa.s.sed over his face. "OhmiG.o.d, ohmiG.o.d, ohmiG.o.d... where's Jane? What happened to my girl friend, Jane? Where did I leave her? OhmiG.o.d, this program has drained my brain. Where did I park her, did I lock her, is someone even now stealing her hub-caps?"

"She went home to North Attleboro to see her parents last week," Hodel said. "Calm down. She's all right."

Ellison visibly relaxed, breathed a sigh of relief. "Boy, it was touch-and-go there for a minute."

Burt Handelsman, c.e., suddenly boomed in the room. "Terry's almost finished. Get set for a cue."

The red light flashed and Hodel said, "Well, we're back now. How're you doing, Harlan?"

"You know, I work seriously at my craft. I spend hours and days and months and years writing these stories with proper serious intent... and then I'm thrown into conjunction with my readers... and it's scary, very scary. These people are all nuts!"

"Yes, but you're the one making stories out of these crazy ideas."

"I'm just a Force for Good in My Time," Ellison replied.

"Well, we're going to make it easy for you," Hodel said. "Group Mind, we're only going to take, say, five more ideas; and then Harlan and I will just chat about other things."

"Bless yuh, Ma.s.sa Ho'del suh; I jus' loves wukkin' foah yuh heah on de plantation."

Hodel punched up a caller. "This is Tad Stones, and I'm calling in an idea for Ed Coffey."

"Good old Ed Coffey, whoever the h.e.l.l he is," Ellison murmured. "Now they're selling shares in my breakdown."

"This is a science fiction story," Tad Stones said.

"What a swell change of pace," Ellison said through clenched teeth, thereby making it unintelligible to the audience.

"An average looking man offers the owner of a video arcade a free computer game for market testing. At thesame moment, apparently the same man is making the same offer to arcades across the country. "

Ellison gritted his teeth. The sound of avalanches went out at one million cycles per second.

"It's an alien plot, okay?" Ellison said.

"You asking me?" Tad Stones said.

"Yeah. I'm asking you. Alien invasion, right?"

"Sure. If you say so."

"Clones. They're clones. That okay, too?"

"Uh-huh."

"Alien clone invasion, howzabout it?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"I aims to please, Mr. Stones. An alien clone invasion from Far Centauri that has as its secret intent the violent overthrow of video arcades. How about it, Stones, you dip? Satisfactory?"

Hodel was getting disturbed. Ellison was no longer funny. He was getting actively vicious. The self-mocking tone at the edge of his remarks was vanis.h.i.+ng. Hodel scribbled a note and thrust it in front of Ellison's glazed eyes.

Are you okay?

"Am I okay, am I okay?" Ellison howled. "No, I'm not okay. I'm going bugf.u.c.k in here! Do you have any idea what it does to someone who spends fifteen hours a day writing to have to deal with this s.h.i.+t?"

"I write, too, Harlan," Hodel said gently.

His concern was evident. Ellison, who had been spiraling up into hysteria, calmed down quickly. "I'm sorry.

Yes, of course, you understand. I've read ENTER THE LION and you're a very good writer, Mike. He's a very good writer, folks." He paused. "But I'm still going bugf.u.c.k!"

Great clouds of smoke Etna'd from his pipe.

There were only four more to go. The first was a man named Jon Clarke who reminded Ellison that he had held down the tire-puncture spikes at the entrance to Cal State, Northridge, when the writer had spoken there some years before and was late in arriving and had to drive in the egress to get to the auditorium. He offered an idea about a Group Mind on cable television stealing the souls of those who appear in its circuits. Ellison was far gone by that time, and could make no sense of the idea. He babbled something about gestalt video vampirism and sank into a depressed funk.

Then a woman named Diana Adkins called and they both listened as she said, "This really happened. A little boy I knew, who was very bright, was asked why, in school and everywhere else, he didn't exhibit how bright he was.

And he said, 'If I hold a candle under the bed, no one will see the flame,' and when he was asked why he would hold a candle under the bed, he said, 'Because if I don't, someone will put it out. ' "

Hodel said, "That's very sad." Ellison said nothing.

"Thank you for calling," Hodel said. He cut to a new caller. Only two to go. He was worried about his guest.